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The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

Embodied energy is dicey to calculate simply too complex so at this point dollars per kwh is better proxy and the tech is competitive with lithium ions in that arena. Course it requires more size... Looks like the inventors biggest expense and i'm sure energy sink is the concrete, I'd be tempted to look into stabilized earth blocks to reduce that further and build right on site. Its encouraging though to see we really aren't out to lunch on what could be done with simpler energy storage tech strategies.

Not going to lie dairy farming with the lady is a hard go right now in historically low price consolidation phase its in, I'm basically working hard for free to help keep their family farm going and then making my scratch off the farm in a wind industry niche. Feel like my tendency to give into capricious free roaming impulses is being very much tested. I don't know if buckling down and making this farm a success for my lady and her family is the version of success I was after and i'm struggling to drive myself forward.

There is lots of positives though, have produced some stellar heifers, pastured milk fattened hogs, become a solid tractor wrench/operator, made world class grass forage and lived through first hand the daily grind against entropy the last few years that it takes to keep this all going. Physically I can keep doing this, mentally though I am bored and lonely for in ways rural american culture can't really fix.

The way forward is to build a community here with little solar powered cabins, refurbed trailers and basic infrastructure and then transition away from so much of the dairy grind. Its just not easy to get there and I am impatient by nature and prone to give up too soon.

Anyways that was too much but it does answer your kid question in that I don't have shit sorted out enough to want to add more difficulty to our situation.

Embodied energy is dicey to calculate simply too complex so at this point dollars per kwh is better proxy and the tech is competitive with lithium ions in that arena. Course it requires more size... Looks like the inventors biggest expense and i'm sure energy sink is the concrete, I'd be tempted to look into stabilized earth blocks to reduce that further and build right on site. Its encouraging though to see we really aren't out to lunch on what could be done with simpler energy storage tech strategies.

Not going to lie dairy farming with the lady is a hard go right now in historically low price consolidation phase its in, I'm basically working hard for free to help keep their family farm going and then making my scratch off the farm in a wind industry niche. Feel like my tendency to give into capricious free roaming impulses is being very much tested. I don't know if buckling down and making this farm a success for my lady and her family is the version of success I was after and i'm struggling to drive myself forward.

There is lots of positives though, have produced some stellar heifers, pastured milk fattened hogs, become a solid tractor wrench/operator, made world class grass forage and lived through first hand the daily grind against entropy the last few years that it takes to keep this all going. Physically I can keep doing this, mentally though I am bored and lonely for in ways rural american culture can't really fix.

The way forward is to build a community here with little solar powered cabins, refurbed trailers and basic infrastructure and then transition away from so much of the dairy grind. Its just not easy to get there and I am impatient by nature and prone to give up too soon.

Anyways that was too much but it does answer your kid question in that I don't have shit sorted out enough to want to add more difficulty to our situation.

You should try raising heritage pigs. I'm losing so much money my current joke de jour is that I've now proved that I'm just as successful at farming as my father was, and so now I can quit. I'll give you 30 head of Mangalitsas if you drive down and load 'em. I paid $700/apiece for my breeding stock.

I've done ok on hogs as I have lots of rich woodland and free milk. I'm actually going to be in southern texas in november and headed back with an empty 24' deckover, wonder if my boss would let me convert his trailer to haul a load of hogs lol?? Are you just having a hard time affording the feed to finish them? Seems like they would be an easy sell to fancy meat inclined folk in austin?

I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why youíre here. Youíre here because you know something. What you know you canít explain, but you feel it. Youíve felt it your entire life, that thereís something wrong with the world.You donít know what it is but its there, like a splinter in your mind

I've done ok on hogs as I have lots of rich woodland and free milk. I'm actually going to be in southern texas in november and headed back with an empty 24' deckover, wonder if my boss would let me convert his trailer to haul a load of hogs lol?? Are you just having a hard time affording the feed to finish them? Seems like they would be an easy sell to fancy meat inclined folk in austin?

I bought the Mangalitsas because I thought they were such fantastic animals that I could raise and sell breeding stock to people wanting to get started with 'em. I suck at marketing, number one. But the demand seems to have dropped off.

I never wanted to feed out pigs. Too much work trying to figure out how to lay hands on free food from the waste chain, which is the only way to make it pay, with GMO corn at $8.49 a bag and hog feed at 13.49 (up from about 9 bucks last year).

I just don't have the time and energy anymore to do what needs to be done. The feed bill is about a thousand a month, and I'm making zilch. Time to pull the plug. I'm going to take some to the sale on Monday, but they don't bring shit at auction.